Startup Nation: how Israel is rebranding itself as the friendliest nation for technology

There’s a special place in the world for startups and we aren’t talking about Silicon Valley.

Viber. Wix. ICQ. Waze. What do all of these companies have in common? These popular apps all have their roots in Israel, a melting pot of culture, religion and yes we aren’t sugar coating it — conflict. But in the same way that the last decade has been good to the Philippines, lifting itself up from being the “sick man of Asia” to an overperforming infrastructure and GDP growth hub, Israel has been making waves in research and development. The startup scene is vibrant in Israel — namely in key cities Tel Aviv and Jerusalem because of a few key factors that make this small country unique.

For one week I immersed myself into the startup culture of Jerusalem. I toured startups, accelerators, VC’s, co-working spaces. For those who need a step back, a startup is an entrepreneurial venture that is set up to meet a certain demand. But what makes this type of company particularly interesting is that it is designed to be lean and agile — meaning it needs to scale very quickly. As to how quick, some may say that these companies need to grow around 5% every week — whether it be sign ups, page views, or the holy grail of metrics — revenue.

Instagram, Uber, Waze, Facebook, Twitter — these were all startups once and have since exited or become acquired by bigger fish (in the case of Instagram and WhatsApp being bought by Facebook and Waze (formerly called FreeMap Israel — being bought by Google). Silicon Valley painted the perfect picture of a startup ecosystem as the location was nourishing to the tech community in general. But rising real estate costs and other factors made it harder for startups to cut costs – a major impediment to being agile.

Enter Israel, ‘the land of milk and honey’ and now the Promised Land for technology entrepreneurs. From my immersion, I’ve gathered that startups thrive in Israel because of three key situations that are unique to the geography:

Israel needs to innovate because of their geopolitical situation
With negative immigration, scarcity of resources and conflict in neighboring countries, Israel has needed to fend for itself. They invented drip irrigation, engineered crops (the cherry tomato was invented in Israel), built the iron dome missile defense system (the technology which they also repurposed to combat agricultural pests) and made such huge advancements in medical technology and automation. “Adapt or die” is a common catchphrase in the startup world and this has been inculcated into their culture. The scarcity of resources encourages “thinking inside the box” to immediately address needs.

Israel has a unique military
Speaking of culture, the military plays an active role during the formative years of every citizen. By law, all men and women are required to serve in the military — 3 years for men and 2 years for women once they turn 18. Service is considered a rite of passage and since conscription is mandatory, strong bonds are forged which become vital in civilian life as well as employment.

Unlike in the Philippines where the most training a civilian received was with the ROTC, military service in Israel throws you in the middle of a hot bed – military intelligence, tank and chopper pilot, artillery. For many women , they may opt to do what is the equivalent of the NSTP in the Philippines which involves a lot of community work, which helps open doors to being great tour guides and public relations specialists.

It has become such that in one way or another, the military had influenced the careers of these tech entrepreneurs in one way or another: Hanan Lipskin, an entrepreneur who develops an anti cyber-bullying app for children called ‘Keepers’ used to work in military intelligence. Another tech entrepreneur Zeev Farman, CEO of Lightricks (makers of the ever-popular app Enlight) says that although he didn’t benefit directly from military service, he did meet his co-founder while in service.

An Israeli startup immediately needs to go global in order to survive
The total population of Israel is a bit over 8 million people — which by comparison is way below the total population of Metro Manila with about 10% living in Jerusalem and half of that in Tel-Aviv. In other words, you could fit the entire population of Israel inside Metro Manila and it still would not be as crowded as it is now in the city.

That being said, there are over 5,500 startups in Israel, which if you think about it. brings a huge disparity in supply vs demand for tech services. As such, due to their small population an israeli startup always sets itself up to be acquired – such as how Waze was acquired by Google and just recently, Mobileye was acquired by Intel.

FAST NUMBERS
5,500 startups in Israel
500+ in Jerusalem
USD $1B in funding from Jerusalem-based companies
70 VC funds active today
USD $100M funding from government
4.3% of GDP invested in R&D
2nd largest number of companies on NASDAQ next to China

Failure is an option in the startup community, so much so that the culture of failure is not frowned upon, even by the Israeli government. With about USD $100 million in the bank reserved solely for entrepreneurs the government takes an active role as both VC fund and accelerator. Any Israeli citizen can pitch their concept to the government and after undergoing a rigorous vetting system, they receive seed capital. If their venture succeeds, the seed money is returned. If a venture fails, the government calls it a learning experience and the doors are left open to try again in the future.

In his book, Startup Nation, Saul Singer has branded Israel as the new Promised Land for research and development. It is a welcome label backed by astounding facts — Israel has the second largest number of companies on NASDAQ next to China, with more than 4% of GDP invested in research and development.

Israeli Startup Rundown

bitemojo
Dubbed as the food crawl app that doesn’t need a tour guide, bitemojo helps foodies and tourists build custom food tours by availing any of their curated packages. In our stay, we took the Jerusalem Market food tour, one of the most popular destinations in Jerusalem. Husband and wife tandem Michael and Yale Weiss developed the app to help tourists discover the city through food, with everything curated by locals. Since everything is pre-paid, tourists do not need to second-guess prices and potentially be ripped off by tourist traps.

OrCam Assistive Technology for the Visually Impaired
This is the world’s most advanced assistive technology to help the visually impaired. Resembling a camera that attaches to your glasses frame, OrCam makes use of a highly accurate text-to-speech recognition using the camera and hand gestures. OrCam also does facial recognition as well as brand logo recognition and can translate up to 20 languages as of this writing.

EatWith
Imagine the “Uber for family dinners.” Enter EatWith, a “social eating” experience that allows you to book dinner with a family in Israel. During our stay we were graced into the home of Chef Aliza, a Cordon Bleau trained chef who migrated to Jerusalem. She acts as EatWith’s ambassador, creating dishes that speak about the cosmopolitan influences of Israel. As a tourist, EatWith is one of the best ways to experience Israeli hospitality.

Keepers
Hanan Lipskin is passionate about keeping children safe from the perils of the Internet — especially with cyber-bullying. With background in the Israeli military intelligence, he developed Keepers, an app that protects children from cyberbullying on their social media platforms and chat by alerting parents if conversations are leading towards harassment.

ModLi
Nava brief Fried had a career in PR before she founded ModLi, the “first and only modest fashion platform.” Whether due to religion or simply fashion sense, ModLi takes into account cultural and religious nuances into the fashion world. Since launch she has gone global, realizing that the demand for modest clothing went beyond Asia and the Middle East.

Mobileye
This startup darling is the recent poster child of what every Israeli startup wants to achieve: being fully acquired by a bigger fish, in this case, a USD $15B acquisition by Intel for their vehicle automation technology. Although self-driving cars are still in development (and Mobileye is the world leader), current technology includes super advanced dash cameras that can predict accidents and help driver navigation, “turning back the clock 3 seconds” to help drivers make better decisions on the road.

ALYNnovation
Although more of an accelerator and less of a startup, the ALYN Hospital for Pediatric and Adolescent Rehabilitation Center has its own R&D center inside the hospital. Whereas in other countries, startups are usually “outside looking in” out of the box solutions, in this case, the startup is located inside the hospital to find “inside the box” solutions for their patients. One of their projects is the Wheelchairs of Hope, which aims to mass produce the most affordable wheelchair into the market at only USD $100.00 per seat.

About the author

Jayvee Fernandez

Jayvee Fernandez is a tech enthusiast, EAN certified SCUBA Diver and underwater photographer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. His photos and videos have appeared in various international and local publications including Random House Germany, Discovery Channel Canada, and CNN.